'PRAGATI PUSTAK' - A PARENT ORIENTED SCREENING TOOL FOR IDENTIFICATION OF DEVELOPMENT DELAY- UTILITY AND EFFICACY : 7 YEARS LONGITUDINAL STUDY

S. Ganvir¹, S. Rai¹, M. Harishchandre¹, S. Ganvir², C. Kunde³

¹DVVPF's College of Physiotherapy, Neurophysiotherapy, Ahmednagar, India, ²DVVPf's College of Physiotherapy, Community Physiotherapy, Ahmednagar, India, ³Bharati Vidyapeeth, Neurophysiotherapy, Pune, India

Background:Developmental delay is seen in upto 3% of children younger than 5 years. One of the major reasons behind underutilization of developmental screening tools is unavailability of a tool for parents in local language , in simple language primarily explained through pictures, in case to avoid literacy bias.
To overcome the shortcomings of traditional screening tools, 'Pragati Pustak' was developed 7 years back. It is a parent oriented screening tool prepared in local language with a pictorial format for each domain for identification of development delay in children till 2 years of age.

Purpose: To report the use and efficacy of this tool for the assistance of parents to identify developmental delay if any, in the child.

Methods: Seventeen villages around the institute were covered including the ANC and PHC centers from 2016-2022. The parents of children till 2 years of age were contacted by a team of physiotherapy and were provided with this Pragati Pustak. This card is provided with the information about normal developmental milestones at different age groups along with the red flag signs and importance of Physiotherapy treatment in the pictorial format. Information about the use of this tool was explained to the parents.

Results: In total 16667 houses, 9 PHC Primary Health centers and 10 ANC Ante Natal Care centers have been covered and a population of 1020 parents of children till 2 years of age have been contacted. A total of 57 children with developmental delay were identified. Of 57 children,49 children who came for follow-up and further management.

Conclusions: Pragati Pustak is an effective tool which can be used by parents effectively to monitor developmental milestones of their child and have been reported to be useful by parents.

Implications: These kind of tools can be developed for assisting parents to identify the developemental delay in other languages also.

Funding acknowledgements: Institutional Financial Support for preparation of tool and transport arrangements is acknowledged.

Keywords:
DEvelopmental DElay
Parent oriented
Screening tool

Topics:
Education: clinical

Did this work require ethics approval? Yes

Institution: DVVPF's College of Physiotherapy, Ahmednagar

Committee: DVVPF's Ethics committee

Ethics number: IEC-COPT/21 dated 1.09.2015